Tag Archives: ash dieback

Concerns about the threats to food and agricultural systems, and to well-loved landscapes and green spaces, from animal and plant diseases have been an ongoing theme in Britain for many years, and have received much media coverage in recent weeks. This media coverage has focussed largely on the eventual and much-debated piloting of the badger cull by the UK Government, aimed at reducing the spread of Bovine Tuberculosis and therefore ameliorating its effects on cattle and the resulting financial losses for farmers. The spread of ash dieback and other tree diseases have also been an area of increasing interest throughout the year, quietly simmering in media coverage and public discourse. Not to mention frequent discussions of swine flu, bird flu and other potential human pandemics.

A key point of contention in the media coverage of the badger cull is the extent to which the policy can be justified by the current scientific evidence (for example, see here). And indeed this has long been the terms on which this debate has rested in government. Furthermore, substantial efforts to collect the necessary data to justify or rule out that badger cull policy, including the controlled trials overseen by Lord Krebs in the 1990s, have proved inconclusive, or have been claimed by both sides of the debate as evidence in their favour. In many corners of the media, the scientific evidence is seen as insufficient to draw firm conclusions on the likely effectiveness of a cull or even to determine baseline figures such as the number of badgers in an area in order to assess the outcomes of the current pilot.

A recent paper by Steve Hinchliffe and colleagues in the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, has gone further than challenging merely the evidential basis for such approaches to dealing with the spread of disease, by questioning the very assumptions about and geometries of disease on which they rest. The destruction of ‘pathological’ badgers and infected trees are both illustrative of attempts to contain the spread of disease; to limit the geographical extension of diseased, unhealthy bodies. For Hinchliffe and colleagues this approach has a distinctive and fixed geometry, which they argue is out-dated and misguided.

The authors offer three critiques of enclosure as a practice of biosecurity. Firstly, they contend that borders between different species, environments and geographical areas are necessarily permeable for “life to live”. They act as contact points which can be enriching as well as threatening. Secondly, they argue that the containment of life is no guarantee of safety as there can be multiple threats to biosecurity from within any given population or group. Finally, Hinchliffe and colleagues critique the theories of disease on which approaches to containment are based, with their assumptions that disease occurs when new pathogens cross into a population. They argue, in contrast that disease does not always emerge from outside of population, but rather is often already present, emerging instead through a complex set of mutations and translations.

As a result these authors advocate an understanding of and approach to disease which recognises the existence of pathogens in all forms of life. For them it is most important to be aware on a much more fine-grained level of how different organisms circulate, through trade and other forms of travel, and how they are entangled in relationships with other species and populations in different ways and with different levels of intensity. This fine-grained analysis would be likely to recommend localised ways of dealing with the problems of Bovine tuberculosis or Ash dieback which are based on a detailed understand of multi-species interactions, in contrast to the national level policies based on large data sets which are currently pursued. They would advocate an approach not about building and securing borders, but exploring the rich interactions occurring in the borderland’s of our food and trade systems.

If you have ever visited Australia you will have experienced a force to be reckoned with- the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service; woe betide anyone who forgets the piece of fruit squashed at the bottom of their hand luggage! Few places exist where the importance of biosecurity is more prominent to the general public than in Australia’s airports where strict regulations are imposed on the importation of food, plant material and animal products to minimise the risk of exotic pests and diseases entering the country. Whilst public awareness campaigns of biosecurity issues are common in Australia, in the UK it appears that both public and governmental awareness only increase after the damage has been done.

Over the last few weeks, Chalara fraxinea, or ash dieback as it is commonly known, has dominated the news. This virulent fungal disease is thought to have hitched a lift with imported saplings from Europe and has already been confirmed in over 80 locations (Forestry Commission, 5th Nov). Patrick Barkham from The Guardian questions whether more could have been done to prevent this outbreak and criticises the government for the “apparently sluggish response” to the disease. As fears grow over the future of our woodlands, more threats from foreign pathogens to our native species are coming out of the woodwork, with Robin McKie from The Observer warning that the Scots pine “could be the next casualty of a ‘tidal wave’ of tree diseases”.

However, it is not just the plant kingdom that is under threat. The controversial badger cull to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) has recently been discussed in parliament. In an article for The Geographical Journal, Gareth Enticott, Alex Franklin and Steven Van Winden explore different biosecurity strategies and behaviours practiced by farmers in response to bTB. Their findings suggest that the promotion of biosecurity to farmers should draw on locally situated practices and knowledge rather than taking a standardised approach. They argue that policy-makers need to “re-evaluate the purpose of disease control and their approaches to it”.

It has taken a series of pest and disease outbreaks for the seriousness of the UK’s biosecurity to hit the headlines. Lessons can be learned from the Australian approach but as more reports emerge, claiming that the government was aware of the ash dieback invasion three years ago, perhaps more focus is needed on biosecurity risk assessments rather than on mitigation efforts once the problem has taken hold.